Casual Acquaintances
by Katherine4
Summary: *slash* A new assignment in school causes unlikely friendships to be formed, romance to blossom between former adversaries... multiple pairings...*on hold indefinitely*
1. New assignment

A/N: It's very sad but so far, I've only seen Season 1 so I'm completely foreign to the new recruits and what happened after Season one… and I'm not American so I have no idea how the American education system works… 

Intended pairing: At first, I intended to solely concentrate on S/L… but then I got caught up in writing the e-mails… rather intoxicating actually *grin* so there are now quite a lot of pairings…. But they'll be subplots….

Disclaimer: not mine, don't sue

"I wonder what he wants," Scott muttered impatiently, fidgeting in his uncomfortable plastic chair.

Swiveling his head to take in the whole of the auditorium filled with grainy sunlight diffusing through the grimy glass windows, his eyes clouded over with worry.

"We didn't trash any school property recently, did we?" He asked worriedly, his eyes raking over the rest of the X-men seated in the row next to him suspiciously.

Grinning affectionately, Jean patted his arm comfortingly. "Calm down, what's your big rush anyway?"

Scott sighed heavily. "I don't know," He confessed.

"It's just, there's so many things to cope with recently." He replied vaguely, trying to evade Jean's probing gaze. 

"You know you can tell me anything, anytime right?" Jean said softly but firmly, looking unflinchingly straight into his eyes that were shielded by his shades.

Sometimes, Jean really hated Scott's sunglasses. Not just because they represented his uncontrollable power, but also because they sheltered Scott from things he wanted to avoid, providing a convenient veil for him.

"Yeah," Scott mumbled intelligibly. 

Jean was about to probe further but her attention was deflected as Principal Kelly strode onto the stage, grasping a microphone tightly in his left hand.

Glaring at the students until the noisy chattering settled down into a low buzzing, he cleared his throat.

Raising the microphone to his lips, he opened his mouth… and promptly grimaced as a piercing shriek of feedback emanated from the microphone, generating howls of complaint from the student population.

Raising the microphone cautiously to his lips again, he started to say authoritatively, "Good morning, I have called this assembly to inform you of the new initiative implemented by the board of directors to improve the standard of English in the school."

Pausing to glower at some students that were chatting among themselves, he continued, "Every single student in this school will be paired up randomly and the two of you will exchange e-mails with each other until the end of the semester from accounts that will be assigned to you shortly. You will not attempt to find out each other's identities. You will not use it as an opportunity to flirt. You will take this matter seriously."

Emphasizing his words by wagging his finger at the students emphatically, he allowed himself a sadistic smile. "And finally, you will save every single e-mail between the two of you and compile it, sending it to your English Literature teacher for grading."

An outraged silence greeted his words and broke out into fierce ranting.

"This is such an invasion of privacy!"

"How are we supposed to e-mail each other if we know all the things we say can be read by a teacher at the end?"

"Don't we already have enough homework and projects to handle?"

"I refuse to take part in such a crappy assignment!"

Ignoring the fuming students, Principal Kelly left the stage and the auditorium, sufficiently satisfied at the ruckus he had caused.

**************

_Oh, please, please, please let it be Kitty….please, please, please…_

_Ooh… I so wanna get Lance- yum, yum, bad-boy…. Or Scott *sigh* gorgeous and sweet…. Or Pietro, but I think he's gay so scratch that…_

_Who the hell cares about this assignment? I never asked for this much responsibility… I wish Mystique would come back and take charge of the brotherhood again. _

_I wish Scott would tell me what's bothering him instead of hiding it and brooding like he always does…_

_I wish I didn't realize that I'm gay…._

TBC…


	2. Emails between L & S

A/N: 1st batch of e-mails……hopefully, you guys will know who the e-mails are sent by ^_^

Disclaimer: not mine, don't sue

Scott stared at the blank computer screen. Sighing audibly, he massaged his temples to ward away the impending headache. 

Taking a deep breath, he finally placed his fingers onto the keyboard.

Dear Whoever (I can't address you until I know what you want me to address you as)

Hi

How are you? I hope we will have a fulfilling time completing this assignment and in the process, enhance our prowess of the English language.

Shades.

Dear Shades

Fuck off… unless you feel like stopping your impersonation of a pompous prick…. Who the hell talks like that?

And you can address me as Mr L

Mr L

Dear Mr L

You fuck off! Firstly, we will be graded on this assignment so we HAVE to demonstrate that we KNOW how to use the English language… and secondly, no one says "pompous prick", unless you live in England and pronounce it as "pom-pus prack."

Shades.

Dear Shades

My, my, how touchy you are. I bet you're a girl and it's that time of the month again. 

Mr L

Dear Mr L

I'm not a girl and you're not funny…. There, I've cleared up your delusions.

Shades

Dear Shades

Ouch! I'm wounded. So you're not a girl… good thing I swing both ways then. And I happen to treasure the reality that I'm rich, handsome and successful, thank you very much. 

Mr L

Dear Mr L

You just proved my point.

Shades.

Dear Shades,

Fuck off.

Mr L

Dear Mr L

So you're back to your former eloquence I see.

Shades

Dear Shades

Fuck off, I mean it. This has not been a good day. Come to think of it, it hasn't been a good week, or a good year…. Fuck, my whole life blows.

Mr L

Dear Mr L

I thought someone was waxing lyrical about their charmed life just a few e-mails earlier. Okay, ignore the earlier sentence, I just couldn't resist the opportunity. What happened? Would it help to confide in someone?

Shades.

Ps. Despite the fact that you show yourself to be insulting, delusional and rather short-on-vocab, I find it rather fun to e-mail you so yeah, I am genuinely concerned.

Dear Shades

Thanks for all the insults, I feel so much better and ready to confide in you. Anyway, you wouldn't understand.

Mr L

Dear Mr L

Stop sounding like a typical, angsty teenager and tell me what's wrong. I command you… you WILL stop acting like an idiot, you WILL tell me what is wrong, you WILL not kill yourself.

Shades

Dear Shades

I'm sorry to inform you that was a nauseating impersonation of Principal Kelly. And did I sound like I was going to kill myself? Don't worry, I won't. I can't anyway, it wouldn't be fair to all the people that are dependent on me.

Mr L

Dear Mr L

Now I can definitely sympathize. Responsibility is a subject I am way more familiar with than I would care to be. Sometimes, you just want to let go and be yourself, you know? Without worrying about other people's perceptions, your own restrictions…. Without thinking about anything at all.

Shades

Dear Shades

Wow. Yeah, that's exactly how I feel sometimes. I can't stand the constant badgering and questioning sometimes…. I just want to be myself, without having the shadow of responsibility over other people hanging over me. I just want to have the freedom to not care…

Mr L

Staring thoughtfully at the words on the screen, Scott leant back in his chair. It was uncanny how this stranger seemed to have so much in common with him.

Grinning slightly to himself, he formulated another reply.

TBC…


	3. More emails

Disclaimer: not mine, don't sue

A/N: *grin* guess the pairings… keep in mind that some will just evolve into friendship…… *heh* I am aware that I am being way too ambitious in attempting to make this fic an ensemble piece….

Beaming away to herself and staring off dreamily into the distance, Kitty blissfully fantasized about who her correspondent would be.

Literally bouncing on her swiveling chair, she crossed her fingers for luck before excitedly typing her e-mail.

Dearest e-pal,

Hi! Yay, I think this is really fun and exciting…. I look forward to finding more about you! 

Kit-kat

Ps. Are you a guy?

Dearest Kit-kat,

I was a guy the last time I checked.

*looks down* yep, still one:-)

Are you a girl?

Circus kid

Dearest ck (can I just call you ck? It's more convenient)

Uh-huh, I'm a girl. 

Okay, what should we talk about?

Kit-kat

Dearest Kit-kat,

No, I don't mind. It makes me sound cooler…. Like Calvin Klein! Haha… can I call you kk… should be okay as long as it's not kkk huh?

Ck

Dearest ck,

Like what?! I don't understand your joke…. Never mind…. I always get the weirdoes….

Kk

Dearest Kk,

I' not a weirdo! And, and, and… you're slow! Ha!

Ck

Opposite-of-dearest ck

I am not slow! And you're mean! And I have someone who would willingly hunt you down and beat you up for saying things like that to me.

Kk

Ultimate-opposite-of-dearest-kk,

I'm not afraid of your thugs! Send them on!

Ck

Extreme-opposite-of-dearest-ck,

He is not a thug! He is a very sweet boy… and since this is likely to be my last e-mail to you and you will never know who I am, I can tell you that I'm kinda sad that I don't like him the way he likes me.

Kk

Dearest kk (see? I'm back to being nice… so continue e-mailing me? Pretty, pretty, please?)

What you said made me realize that we may be able to help each other…. There's this girl who I like A LOT and I think she likes me too but is scared to get involved with me cos I like her more than she likes me.

Ck

********

Cramming a piece of sticky cinnamon bun into his mouth unconsciously, Fred waited as he racked his brains for something witty to type.

And waited.

And waited some more.

And gave up.

Hello.

My English is not very good so please excuse me for any mistakes I make next time.

F

Dear F

Hello. Don't worry, that's what the whole point of this assignment is… to help each other to improve… so don't apologize for any mistakes you may make. In fact, make as many as you can now, so that you won't make them during examinations!

J

Dear J

Thank you for being so nice. I'm glad you are my partner. My English is not good because I get distracted by other things. And I am scared of talking much because people laugh at me.

F

Dear F

Don't worry about other people's opinions. Narrow-minded, selfish people should not have the ability to affect you. Just ignore them and they will disappear…. *Sigh* but there's one that no matter how much I ignore, will never disappear. I guess he will never get it into his thick, football-concussed skull that I am not and will never be interested in him.

J


	4. Even more emails

A/N: thanx for the sweet reviews… esp. furygrrl…. ^_^

Disclaimer: not mine, don't sue

Dear whatever,

This is STUPID!!! And I am only doing this because my tyrannical but still completely beautiful aunt is standing right over me, as I type every single letter…. Ow! Stop hitting me! Child abuse!!! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!! Chi

Dear whatever,

I hope you have been murdered.

Gift-to-mankind

Dear Gift-to-mankind

Sorry to dash your hopes but nope, I'm still alive and kicking… sorry to end off like that on my first e-mail… I was trying to hit the send button while my aunt was trying to kill me.

Gift-to-skateboarding

Dear GOS,

That's quite all right. I'm disappointed she didn't succeed cos then I could have avoided this utterly insipid assignment.

Gift-to-mankind

Dear GOM

Please do not butcher my name… this is Gift-to-skateboarding, not some crappy lip gloss sound-a-like….which by the way, I know way too many things about… 

Gift-to-skateboarding

Dear GOS

I'll stop butchering your name if you stop butchering my name… and you're starting to sound very interesting…. A skateboarding transvestite? So many possibilities….

Gift-to-mankind

Dear Gift-to-mankind

Fine, I'll stop if you will. Deal?

Gift-to-skateboarding

Dear Gift-to-skateboarding

Deal.

Gift-to-mankind

Pietro smirked as he leaned back in his seat. Rubbing his hands together in a display of anticipation, he grinned as he thought about his next conquest.

*********

Glaring at the computer as if he would rather smash it than type something on it, Todd crashed his fingers onto the placid keyboard, only to wince as the impact jolted his joints.

I would rather eat flies than do this assignment.

T

I would rather mix flies, spiders and cockcroaches in a pot, stir them up and perform a spell than do this assignment.

R

*gulp*

okay you win.

T

Good.

Now I want you to write e-mails from you to me and vice versa and compile them, sending it to me.

R

Please tell me you're joking.

T

I'm perfectly serious.

R

*gulp*okay.

T


End file.
